The most logical and obvious
choice for a memorial to the World Trade Center is the façade
shard that stood on the site for a long time after the center's
twin towers were demolished in a terrorist attack September 11,
2001. The multi-story shard itself was eventually taken down but
its bent grid was a highly visible and sculpturally significant
remnant of the tragedy that could rather easily be incorporated
into any memorial plan for the site.

It has not been included or suggested in the eight "finalist"
plans selected by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation
(http://www.renewnyc.org)
for the proposal memorial out of 5201 submitted from 63 countries
and 49 states.

The second most obvious
choice for a memorial would be the inclusion of the twin towers
of light that were installed briefly. One of the proposals, "Inversion
of Light" by Toshio Sasaki, see below, does include one "tower"
of light.

The Lower Manhattan Development
Corporation created guidelines that included that the proposals
should clearly show the "footprints" of the fallen towers,
designate a resting place for unidentified victims and acknowledge
everyone who was killed at the site as well as those killed in
an earlier terrorist attack on the towers February 26, 1993.

The selected finalists are not well-known architects and designers
and their proposals are on view in the Wintergarden at the World
Financial Center in Lower Manhattan across West Street from the
site of the World Trade Center. They are also on line at http://www.wtcsitememorial.org.

The finalists were chosen by a 13-person jury. Members of the
jury are Paula Grant Berry, whose husband, David Berry, was killed
in the south tower; Susan Freedman, president of the Public Art
Fund; Vartan Gregorian, president of the Carnegie Foundation of
New York; Patricia Harris, deputy mayor for administration for
New York City; Maya Lin, the designer of the Vietnam Veterans
Memorial in Washington, D.C.; Michael McKeon, manager director
of Mercury Public Affairs and former director of communications
for Gov. George E. Pataki; Julie Menin, president and founder
of Wall Street Rising, a non-profit organization, and owner of
the Vine Restaurant in Lower Manhattan; Enrique Norten, a member
of TEN Arquitectos and holder of the Miller Chair of Architecture
at the University of Pennsylvania; Martin Puryear, an artist;
Nancy Rosen, a member of the city's Art Commission; Lowery Stokes
Sims, executive director of the Studio Museum in Harlem; Michael
Van Valkenburgh, the Charles Elliot professor in practice of landscape
architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and founder
of Michael Van Valkenburgh Architects in Manhattan and Cambridge,
Mass.; and James E. Young, professor and chair of the Department
of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies at the University of Massachusetts
at Amherst.

The jury viewed all submissions anonymously and then gave the
finalists stipends to further develop their proposals. The jury
is expected to announce a winner by the end of 2003.

The selection of a memorial
design is being made while the design of a new World Trade Center
remains extremely controversial. Although Daniel Libeskind won
the design competition for the huge project, Larry Silverstein,
the developer who controls the lease for the project, hired David
Smith of Skidmore Owings & Merrill, to design the tallest
tower and his plan was in conflict with Libeskind. Libeskind called
for an office building of about 70 stories with a 1,776-foot-high
spire attached to its side. Mr. Smith's plan put the spire above
the office building rather than at its side. Furthermore, Mr.
Silverstein, one of the city's most respected commercial real
estate entrepreneurs, hired Sir Norman Foster, Jean Nouvel and
xxxx to design some of the other, shorter towers in the project.
Gov. Pataki has sided with Mr. Libeskind, but it remains to be
seen how much of his vision will ultimately be incorporated into
the design and that uncertainty is sure to cloud the very emotional
memorial selection.

What follows is a brief description with two illustrations of
each of the finalists' schemes along with bios and an analysis
of the proposals. There are presented in the order that is found
at http://www.wtcsitememorial.org.

Votives
in Suspension

Norman
Lee and Michael Lewis of Houston, Texas

Excerpt from statement:

"Our proposal for the WTC memorial aims to transform the
towers' footprints into dual sanctuary spaces that resonate profoundly
with a sense of both individual and collective loss. The memorial
sanctuaries will be set into the earth and semi-enclosed from
the outside. Only narrow gaps that outline each footprint will
allow sunlight to penetrate into these sacred areas. Austere and
minimal, the exteriors will give no indication of their interior
space. From street level, the sanctuaries' monolithic expanses
will invite contemplation and suggest absence. Once on the memorial
grounds, the sanctuaries will only be made visible to visitors
by long parapet walls that surround the footprints of the original
towers. Most of this area will be kept as green park space providing
a versatile venue for memorial ceremonies. Visitors will also
be visually drawn to the exposed slurry walls on the western edge
of the site as well as the Liberty Wall located on the southern
side. The Liberty Wall will be engraved with monumental text that
provides a didactic historial timelines of the World Trade Center
site. A large part of this story will focus on the heroic efforts
of brave rescue workers who worked tirelessly, many of whom made
the ultimate sacrifice, to save lives on September 11th. Visitors
will descend down a stairway or lift system into each sanctuary,
emerging into a darkened, serene environment. Here they will witness
an expansive field of votive lights suspended in mid-air creating
a sublimely beautiful downpour of loss. The votives, each representing
a victim of the terrorist attacks, hand down on cables from the
sanctuary ceiling just above a reflecting pool. The cables will
function as capillaries that channel liquid fuel into the votives
to sustain the symbolic flames. The age of each victim is used
to determine the height of the suspended votives creating an irregular
field of light that both breaks apart into fragments and coalesces
as an entirety. This reinforces the memorial mission to convey
both the overall magnitude of loss and pay tribute to individual
lives.The name of each victim will be listed horizontally in alphabetical
order on the parapet walls that define and encompass each sanctuary
space. The procession of names will begin in the sanctuary devoted
to the North Tower, where the first plane hit, and conclude in
the sanctuary devoted to the South Tower. A somber underground
passageway will connect these two sanctuaries as well as provide
access to burial space located at bedrock for the unidentified
remains of victims."

Biographies:

Mr. Lee is a senior concept
developer of museum exhibits in Houston, where he was born and
raised. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with
a BA in psychology and received a BA in art history from the University
of Houston. He interned at Walt Disney Imagineering and received
a master's degree in museum education in 2000 from the University
of Texas.

Mr. Lewis is a museum exhibit designer and project management
on large-scale museum installations. Born in Memphis, Tennessee,
he lives in Houston. He graduated from Presbyterian College in
Clinton, S.C., and study photography at Oxford as well as film
directing.

Comment:

A very large cluster of suspended votives hanging at levels
determined by the age of each victim could be quite attractive,
depending on the quality of the design of the votive, the cables,
and the backgrounds. From the submitted illustrations, it would
appear that the votives would be white and identical and that
some would hang higher than visitors and some lower, a range that
might dissolve the "starry night" effect. Should the
votives be of different colors to reflect sex, or race, or religion?
Probably night. Votives, of course, are often associated with
Catholic traditions, and are not universally used. Candle votives,
of course, were widely seen throughout the city in the immediate
aftermath of the attacks but they were not uniform in size, color
and shape, which added to their allure.
As proposed, this is essentially a large and static, but graceful
memorial of small lights. One suspects that there would not be
enough lights in each sanctuary to be dazzling, given the sanctuaries'
sizes. It is a question of scale and one wonders upon the horizontal
placement of each light. Would that be arbitrary? It seems so.
Clearly one would like to think the placement is not random.

Lower
Waters

Bradley
Campbell and Matthias Neumann of Brooklyn, New York

Model,
view from the west, left, and view of slurry wall at bedrock,
right

Excerpt from statement:

"Water and light symbolize
life, rejuvenation and rebirth....Our physical movement throughout
the site, the inclined park and the various levels of memorial
and museum, represents our emotional movement through the experiences
of memory, grief, discovery, hope, and rebirth. We descend to
the memorial spaces, the literal and figurative centers, and to
the Museum of September 11. Our contact with the names of the
victims, their final resting place, the original slurry wall,
and bedrock level of the World Trade Center causes us to contemplate
the profound loss suffered on September 11 and to be grateful
for the many that were saved. As we ascend, we come back to the
city and ourselves transformed by the emotional and historic magnitude
of that day....The memorial space of the North Tower is clad in
black granite - solemn, strong, stable - a reference to living
memory and to the foundation of the towers. The private area for
families of the victims and the intimate area for the public are
made of thick walls of earth, to suggest comfort and stability
at the depths. The façade of the Museum of September 11
in the South Tower Footprint is stacked grass with sanded edges
referring to both the construction and collapse of the towers.

Biographies:

Bradley Campbell was born
on September 10, 1969 in St. Paul, Minnesota. In 1988 he moved
to Columbus, Ohio to attend the Columbus College of Art and Design.
In 1990 he left school...to pursue a career as an artist....He
now lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Matthias Newmann joined
the office of Alfredo Di Vido Associates in 2002. Two years ago
he became co-founder of normaldesign, a multi-disciplined design
group loosely based in New York City. Most recently normaldesign
was a finalist in the "Marking Places That Matter" competition
organized by Place Matters, a joint project of the Municipal Art
Society and City Lore....Mr. Neumann, a resident of Brooklyn,
New York, was born in Germany and completed his architectural
training in Germany, Canada and Italy.

Comment:

The above-ground
treatment of this proposal is uninspired. The black granite, north
"footprint" is bulky and has little to do with the stylistic
history of the site. The left-over park spaces are little more
than a lawn with none of the sophistication that the world's great
landscape architects are capable of. The interior of the Museum
of September 11, however, is quite imposing with a grand staircase
and slender pillars supporting a high ceiling, resulting in a
possibly impressive space. The treatment of the slurry wall is
not without some interest but is too narrowly confined and probably
not at all what Daniel Libeskind had in mind when he called for
the retaining of the very large and long wall that needs much
more space to have an impact.

Passages of Light:
Memorial Cloud

bbc
art + architecture

Gisela
Baumann, Sawad Brooks, Jonas Coersmeier

Excerpt from statement:

"...we wish to create
upon a site scarred by a terrifying loss, sorrow, and grief, a
work of shared and individual mourning, as well as a gesture affirming
our hopes, common dreams, and ability to rebuild. Our intention
is first to recognize and honor the victims of September 11, 2001
and February 26, 1993 within a special, shrouded, spiritual space,
protected from the noise and pace of the city by a crystalline
'cloud.' The cloud's top surface is a translucent bandage healing
a wound. Level with 'Ground Zero' (special level) and permitting
transversal, it reconnects the urban fabric of downtown. On the
ground beneath the cloud eachof the 2,982 victims is represented
by a radiating circle of light embedded into the floor, which
illuminates the engraved name of the individual victim but also
projects a subtle ray of light upward into the cloud. During the
day, the cloud, like an undulating veil, a sinuous surface forming
cathedral-like vaults, channels daylight downward onto the field
of names. Together, the names form a design that we term the 'Pompeii
Scheme,' because it represents individuals equally in the course
of their lives, cut short by the attacks....Our design is guided
by our respect for the sacred ground. Accordingly, we limit the
cloud to touching the ground for support on only five points;
we judiciously open the earth beneath the World Trade Center Tower
footprints only to provide visitors access to the symbolic 'bedrock'
level, creating thereby a processional passage of light and subterranean
darkness. The procession that carries visitors beside the repository
for the 'unidentified remains' connects both footprints with the
channel along the exposed slurry wall. Through the Memorial Cloud
we hope to elicit two more responses, one highly physical, the
other imaginative, both of awe. One recovers a sensation associated
with the World Trade Center Towers when we recall standing in
their presence: the urge to look skywards, a vertical gesture
associated with hope. With the second gesture we seek to give
expression to a relation between those we mourn and those who
live on affected by the tragedy and repercussions of the attacks.
This is a relation between the finite and the sublime. The cloud's
design as a bundle of 10,000 vertical conduits for light which
support each other structurally, distributing the forces of tension
and compression, figuratively represents our shared responsiveness
to crisis and our cumulative strength."

Biographies:

Gisela Baurmann is the principal
of amoebe architecture, a New York-based design firm. Ms. Baurmann
received her Masters in Architecture Degree from Columbia University
as a Fulbright Scholar, and also studied at the Architectural
Association School of Architecture in London and the Technical
University Berlin....In 2001, teaming up with Jonas Coersmeier
and Birgit Schoenbrodt in her firm..., she won second prize in
the International Design Ideas Competition "Redesigning Queens
Plaza," organized by the Van Alen Institute. Sawad Brooks
is a critic, artist and award winning designer working with public
and information spaces. Sawad's work has been exhibited internationally,
including shows at the Whitney Museum of American Art..., the
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, the Johannesburg Biennale and
the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam. Sawad, who was born
in Bogotá, Colombia, currently lives and works in New York
City. Jonas Coersmeier is an award-winning architectural designer
and the Principal of Probehead Architecture, New York. Born in
Cologne, Germany, he received his architectural education at Columbia
University, M.I.T., and Technical University Darmstadt. He holds
a Masters in Advanced Architectural Design and a Diplom Ingenieur
degree in Architecture.

Comment:

This is the showiest
and most interesting of the 8 finalists' proposals. The notion
of an abstract, "crystalline" cloud on which one can
walk and under which one can wander in a man-made cave is intriguing
and the submission's graphics are impressive. This is one of the
few submissions with grandeur. What is critical, however, is how
finely the design can be implemented. While it is very artistic,
the dramatic design is essentially curvilinear and horizontal
as opposed to the rectinilinearity and verticality of the fallen
Twin Towers. The low-rise buildings of the World Trade Center,
of course, did have curvilinear elements, but they were dwarfed
by the towers and generally overlooked.

Suspending Memory

Joseph
Karadin with Hsin-Yi Wu

Excerpt from statement:

"...Each
victim is manifested as a symbol of strength, a single column
helping support one of two island gardens. As the columns extend
through the garden surface at varied heights they transform from
concrete into glass. Each unique glass column is a timeline of
a victim's defining moments beginning with a birth date and culminating
at September 11, 2001 and February 26, 1993. It is an object biography
that gives visitors a glimpse of the persons who perished on both
days. By sharing the victim's birth date and life story, it enables
visitors to relate and form a personal bond which otherwise would
not have existed. The memorial column becomes a glowing beacon
of each victim; tehir defining moments shing brightest at night.
In passing between the ever-changing gardens, the visitor is made
aware of two other tragic events bridged in time: Somerset County,
Pennsylvania and Arlington, Virginia. The memorial bridge is composed
of alternating bands of stone and glass, epitomizing the past
and the present, the enduring and the ever changing. The name
of each victim from Pennsylvania and Virginia is etched into a
glass plaque suspended over a pool of reflected azure. Upon entering
the North garden, visitors are greeted with a natural stone wall
inlaid with 2982 randomly protruding polished squares. This wall
spans the length of the island, shielding it from its frenetic
surroundings. Water trickles from an opening at the base of each
square into a pristine reflecting pool. The Pool of Tears enfolds
the entire memorial site forever preserving Ground Zero as hallowed
ground..."

Biographies:

Originally from Ohio, Joseph
Karadin moved to New York City in 1997 after graduating from Cornell
University with a Bachelor of Architecture. Currently, Mr. Karadin
is working as a designer in Manhattan and lives in New York. Hsin-Yi
Wu was born in Taipei, Taiwan, and grew up in Jakarta, Indonesia;
she arrived in the United States in 1992. In 1997, she graduated
from Cornell University with a Bachelor of Architecture. She currently
works in Manhattan and lives in New York.

Comment:

This is one of two proposals
that give substantial recognition not only to the terrorist attacks
on the World Trade Center in 1993 and 2001 but also to the two
other terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 elsewhere in the
United States. This makes it more of a national memorial, which
is appropriate. Its large pool with the two "footprint"
memorial islands is also well thought out with a graceful but
grand treatment. The Pool of Tears and its fountain wall of 2982
polished protruding squares is also handsome. All of these elements
are nicely and well conceived, and make considerable sense, enough
to make it one of the best proposals. The glass columns interspersed
with the islands' trees is a little busy and it is not clear whether
each victim's "defining moments" would be equitable.
Would some victims have more than others? Otherwise, if the large
pool were to incorporate a sculptural element based on the last
standing shards of the collapsed towers and also twin beacons
of vertical light beams it would be a winner.

Garden
of Lights

Pierre
David with Sean Corriel, Jessica Kmetovic

Excerpt from statement:

"There was a last hour,
a last minute, a last second that 2,982 stars went dark. The instant
there was this last light there was a first light, 2982 stars
were born. A new constellation expands across the entire site;
a new garden expands across the entire site....Above there is
the garden, below there is a new sky and 2,982 stars. The garden
of lights links the sky above to the new sky below. A glass wall
surrounds this garden of lights. When it opens everyday from 8:46AM
to 10:29AM it is a breath, a new rhythm for the city. The seed
of the garden is the courage of the past. A gardener is invited
from a different part of the world each year to nurture this seed.
The footprints teem with life, a prairie. Between the footprints
the gardener raises an orchard....Between the garden above and
the new sky below are two rooms the expanse of the footprints.
The south room of light is pure light filled with all of the sky
above and below. The family moves with their tears in between
the lights, memory, and life. Leading to the north room of light
is an offering path, a stream lined with roses. They give a rose,
and the floating petals being them into the north room of light.
A steel wall faorged from the salvaged metal of the tower occupies
the length of this room. The family passes along its tehickness.
On the other side of this wall glow 1,275 lights. This is the
resting place of the unidentified remains. Beneath the garden,
beneath the rooms of light, we are under the constellation of
2,982 stars tht shine down on 2,982 altars. The eight-year-old
daughter has hand-written the name of her father. Her handwriting
is engraved in the alabaster of her father's altar forever. Light
shines on each engraved name for eternity....In the distance,
the slurry wall accompanies the light down to reveal bedrock."

Biographies:

Pierre David resides in
Paris. After receiving his degree in Architecture from the Ecole
d'Architecture Paris Belleville in 1991, Pierre David taught landscape
architecture until 1998 at the Ecole Nationale Superieure du Paysage
in Versailles. Since that time, he has taught architecture and
landscape design at various institutions in France, through Europe,
and in the United States including Harvard University and Columbia
University....He currently teaches at the Ecole d'Architecture
de Clermont-Ferrand and for the New York/Paris Program, administered
by Columbia University. Sean Corriel grew up in Huntington, New
York. He is a fifth-year landscape architecture student at Cornell
University. Jessica Kmetovic resides in Oakland, California, where
she is currently a fifth-year student in the bachelor architecture
program at the California College of Arts and Crafts.

Comment:

This
proposal may appeal to environmentalists who love orchards and
certainly a large patch of green is always welcome and in the
harsher seasons when the trees are leafless the orchard would
be a reminder of loss. This part of the proposal, however, is
sweet and simple, but not grand. This is the main plaza area,
after all, for what is planned as a gigantic mixed-use complex.
While criticisms of the original plaza at the World Trade Center
as barren and windswept were not off target, this proposal goes
too far the other way with little sense of grandeur, or formality,
nor uniqueness. What kind of trees? How many? The underground
part of this proposal - the alabaster altars topped with "handwritten"
names of the victims - as a certain appeal, but the focus of this
and many of the other proposals on the individual victims can
begin to miss the bigger picture. There is no question that memorializing
the victims individually has strong emotional appeal and impact.
Specificity makes it real. Names on park benches are touching
but also a bit proprietary and a bit elitist - only the rich can
afford them. One wouldn't want to pave over Central Park with
plaques and who is to guarantee that commercial advertisements
- sponsorships - would not be far behind.

Reflecting
Absence

This design was
chosen the winner of the competition January 6, 2004

Michael
Arad

Excerpt from statement:

"...A pair of reflective
pools marks the location of the towers' footprints. The surface
of these pools is broken by large voids. These voids can be read
as containers of loss, being close-by yet inaccessible. The pools
are submerged thirty feet below street level in the middle of
a large open plaza. They too are large voids, open and visible
remainders of the absence. The pools are fed by a constant stream
of water, cascading down the walls which enclose them. Bordering
each pool is a pair of shaped buildings. These buildings create
a sense of enclosure, capturing the exposed outer corners of the
memorial site and defining a path of circulation around each pool.
They also guide visitors to the site into the memorial itself.
Visitors begin their descent into the memorial by entering one
of these buildings. This descent removes them from the sights
and sounds of the city and immerses them in a cool darkness. As
they gradually proceed, step by step, the sound of water falling
grows louder, andmore daylight filters in from below. At the bottom
of their descent, they find themselves behind a thin curtain of
water, staring out at an enormous pool that flows endlessly towards
a central void that remains empty. A ribbon of names surrounds
this pool and the enormity of this space and the multitude of
names lining it underscore the vast scope of the tragedy that
took place at this site....The western edge of the plaza is bounded
by a cultural building that shelters the site from the highway."

Biographies:

Michael Arad grew up in
Israel, the United States and Mexico. He has been living in the
U.S. since finishing his military service in the Israeli Defense
Force in 1991. He received a BA from Dartmouth College, and a
MA from Georgia Tech's College of Architecture. He moved to New
York City in 1999 and worked as an architect at Kohn Pedersen
Fox for three years. He recently joined the Design Department
of the New York City Housing Authority....He lives in the East
Village in New York City.

Comment:

This
is a strong design except for the proposed "cultural"
building on its western edge that would block views of much of
the memorial site from the World Financial Center across West
Street. The proposed building is thin and while the notion of
shielding the memorial site from traffic noise is laudable it
really points to a critical problem with all of the designs, namely,
is West Street to be tunneled and turned into a park that unites
the World Financial Center with the rest of Lower Manhattan. It
must be and the proposed "cultural" building is the
wrong idea at this part of the site. Apart from that, there is
a good sense of monumentality and serenity here.In
a surprise decision, the design competition jury selected this
design as the winner after two major changes were made: the abandonment
of the proposed building along West Street and the selection of
landscape architect Peter Walker (see The City Review of his book, "Minimalist
Gardens")
as a partner.

Dual
Memory

Brian
Strawn and Karla Sierralta

Excerpt from statement:

"Elements of water
reflect light and memory. 2,982 light portals shine over the 'Individual
Memory Footprint," where the North Tower of the WTC once
stood. Each light glows with individual intensity, honoring all
of the victims who died. Elements of water embrace and reflect
memories related to those we lost, those who survived and the
selfless actions of those who aided in rescue, recovery and healing.
The journey to the emotional center of the footprint is a personal
experience. Evolving images are reflected as water flows down
the walls that support the plane of water above. On glass and
stone, the names are revealed. Here, as stories are shared, they
become part of our collective. A final resting place for the unidentified
remains embraces a private area for family members and loved ones.
This space, at bedrock, becomes the most sacred. Elements of earth
create spaces that frame the sky. 92 Sugar Maples trees stand
on the 'Shared Memory Footprint.' The space, where the South Tower
of the WTC once stood, is devoted to the shared loss of a community,
a city, a country, and the world. These native trees of New York
grow as a symbol of new life in the soil of each of the 92 nations
brought together by the great tragedies. A shared path guides
visitors through bands of nature that form around the emotional
center of the footprint. Stone walls that carry messages of hope
from each of the countries and a bed of wild roses surround this
quiet space for meditation and contemplation."

Biographies:

Brian Strawn was born and
raised on a small farm in Alexander, Illinois....After completion
of his undergraduate degree [in zoology] in 1997 at Southern Illinois
University, he worked for a year at the Hensen Robinson Zoo, and
participated in a work abroad program in London....He received
a Master of Arts in Architecture from the University of Illinois
at Chicago in 2003....He now works for an architecture firm in
Chicago. Karla Sierralta was born and raised in Maracaibo, Venezuela.
She received her bachelor of architecture from the University
of Zulia (LUZ) in 1999....Ms. Sierralta was awarded a Fulbright
Scholarship to purse her Masters in ARchitecture at the University
of Illinois in Chicago; she was awarded her degree this year.

Comment:

This
plan is perhaps the most sculptural surface treatment of all the
finalists' designs. Its stepped open spaces, partially landscaped,
conceiveably afford the opportunity for use as a amphitheater,
something downtown could use. Furthermore, the south "footprint"
appears to be raised at an upwards angle toward the east and a
grand staircase aparts part of a building adjoining the north
"footprint" at its southeastern corner. These elements
add a sense of complexity that is not inappropriate for all the
varied private and public interests in the site. Nonetheless,
the design does not come together cohesively and the interior
spaces lack "umph" and are somewhat akin to convention
center displays.

Inversion
of Light

Toshio
Sasaki

Excerpt from statement:

"The work I envision
for the site will consist of the universal elements of light,
water, air, and earth. Light, which is eternal and which emanates
from the beginning of the universe; water, from which life came;
and earth and air, which nourish life and the living. I propose
to create a street-level park that will preserve the twin towers'
footprints and the slurry wall. The park will signify the renewal
of life and offer a place for public ceremonies and days of remembrance.
The below-grade level beneath the park where the unidentified
remains area is situated, gives both the victims and their families
a serene place for visitation, contemplation, and rest. To enter
the underground area of the memorial, one descends a ramp leading
to where the victims are represented as light, water, and air.
Within the north tower's footprint, a representative floor plan,
based on those of the ninety-fourth and ninety-fifth floors, is
illuminated from below; the light is blocked in the central area
of the plan. On the north wall of the memorial, where the first
plane hit, an extended curtain of clear glass will be etched with
the names of the lost individuals. The victim's names will be
sorted in two categories, designated by 2001 and 1993. The 2001
category will be organized by locations: World Trade Center site,
Somerset County, Pennsylvania and Arlington, Virginia. The victim
names within these locaitons will be organized by civilians and
non-civilians (military personel, NYPD, NYFD and other groups).
Behind the glass and along its length and height, water will trickle
continuously, representing the eternal movement of life through
time.The black-granite east and west walls will be etched with
the memorial mission statement and the heroes' insignias; the
east wall with the history of events. In footprint of the south
tower, a reflection pond will serve as a tribute to the spirits
of the victims; at night, it will be illuminated from beneath
by a circle of lights projecting into the sky. In winter, the
heat of the lights will vaporize the water and create the image
of names on its surface. The centrally located unidentified remains
area is enclosed in two semicircular glass walls, unified above
by a circular skylight that emerges in the curvilinear park. From
this central column ripples out a horizontal configuration that
incorporates all elements of the memorial and its surroundings
- all columns, the main ramp, all lighting, the museums, the footprints
and elements within, and the geography of the surrounding urban
grid, extending to the Statue of Liberty and, perhaps, beyond.
From this column a blue laster light shines into the universe,
connecting the geometry and geography of the earth with the geometry
and eternity of the universe...."

Biographies:

Artist Toshio Sasaki was
born in Kyoto, Japan. After receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts
at the Aiichi University of Fine Arts he came to New York to attend
the Brooklyn Museum Art School. He is the recipient of a NYSCA
CAPS Fellowship and a NEA Visual Artists Fellowship, and has been
recognized by the City of New York for his wall relief The First
Symphony of the Sea at the Aquarium for Wildlife Conversation
in Brooklyn.....Mr. Sasaki currently lives and works in Brooklyn,
New York.

Comment:

This
proposal is notable for its inclusion of a blue laser light projecting
into the sky, a variation on the twin beacons of light that were
briefly installed at the site and which were very, very popular.
Why only one? Logic suggests two. Mr. Sasaki's south "footprint"
lights and vapor are nice touches and the sinking of the footprints
is good but the ramp seems a bit too narrow and might be better
if widened to provide amble seating.

Conclusion

None
of the eight finalist designs are compelling. In part, this can
be explained by the insistence on the memorial clearly defining
the "footprints" of the twin towers. Overhanging the
competition is the messy and still unresolved design for the rebuilding
of the World Trade Center. What has been particularly disturbing
is the public announcement of a selection and then its subsequent
redesign to something substantially different. Such a process
is a charade and smacks of poor planning and, worse, influence
peddling.

Both
competitions are not for some suburban mall, but for one of the
world's most famous sites. In their zeal to involve the public,
the sponsors of the competition have emphasized the need to honor
those lost in the terrorist attacks and not surprisingly the families
of the victims have become very, very vocal. Their concerns are
important, but the project is more important than the individual
victims. It needs to be a community-wide, city-wide and national
response and monument. Indeed, it needs to be an internationally
meaningful design. Such a solution, of course, would be difficult
to achieve on a barren battlefield, let alone at the center of
a very, very large mixed-use development that is integral to the
future of Lower Manhattan, which for several decades in the early
20th Century was the world's most glorious, important and influential
skyline.

Two
critics for The
New York Times, Herbert Muschamp and Michael Kimmelman, have
written severely critical columns expressing their disappointment
with the memorial site jury's selection of finalist designs.

In
a November 20, 2003 article, architecture critic Muschamp maintained
that "none of them deserve to be built in their present form."
He noted that Michael Arad's design, "Reflecting Absence,"
had the "signal virtue of focusing the viewer's attention
where we want it to be focused: on the symbolic pair of shapes
that have come to represent the simultaneity of public and private
loss. The design has problems, too. There's a surfeit of hard
paving in the plaza surrounding the pools. The pools are flanked
by low buildings that appear visually irrelevant to the memorial
task. They enlose steps that lead downinto subterranean galleries
for viewing cascades of water that flow from voids in the pools
above. It will not be possible to judge how these underground
spaces would work until more is known about plans to install a
shopping mall at ground zero." Mr. Muschamps also noted that
"Suspending Memory," by Joseph Karadin and Hsin-Yi Wu,
"reverses the concept of the Arad scheme" and "envisions
a garden within each of the footprints, surrounding by an immense
pool of water." "But," Mr. Muschamps continued,
"this plan, too, is overburdened with features: columns of
concrete and glass; capsule biographies of the victims; a memorial
bridge....As these features pile up, the project comes to seem
more and more like an artifact of the memorial industry, less
like a heartfelt response....As for the other designs, they all
offer an excess of spectacle."

In
his off-lead article of the Arts & Leisure December 7, 2003
edition in The
New York Times, Mr. Kimmelman offers an even harsher criticism,
stating that "now that everyone agrees that the ground zero
memorial finalists are a disappointment, there's only one thing
to do. Throw them all out." "We should insist on salvaging
this most important of public projects, as well as our city and
the nation, from a legacy of compromise that leads to banality....Forget
vapid populism. Limit the competition to participants of the jury's
expert choosing...The cost of building an unmemorable memorial
would be far more than shabby aesthetics. It would be a moral
failure. A distracted and impatient culture gets the memorial
it deserves....In building this crucial monument to democracy
and to our great culture, let's give the populist experiment a
rest. Let's champion another American ideal: excellence."

The
above photograph taken of a television screen shows the still-standing
base of one of the twin towers with its bent and broken façade
grid that eventually was torn down. The image of that tall part
of that broken base appeared regularly in coverage of the terrorist
attacks and their aftermath and as such became an indelible symbol,
one that could be recreated and one which aesthetically is very,
very strong.

Mr.
Mushamps disenchantment with clutter and spectacle and yearning
for a minimalist solution is not without merit but he does not
articulate a solution. Mr. Kimmelman's "elitist" comments
are valid but are not a guarantee of excellence as the jury members
are not all artists, sculptors, designers and architects.

To
start this process over again would be agonizing and further discombobulate
what remaining well-intentioned integrity the project has. Mr.
Kimmelman has it right when he prioritizes the memorial's need
to uphold and uplift democracy, the city and the nation.

Michael
Arad's proposal, "Reflecting Absence," perhaps would
be the easiest to modify. By including a "shard" sculpture
and incorporating twin vertical beacons of light and by not building
his "cultural" building on the western side, it would
go a long way to solving the problem.

Ted
Heys has proposed an interesting memorial that does away with
the pit and slurry wall and creates an interesting and lovely
memorial centered around a lattice-like low-rise structure that
recalls the "shards." The proposal can be viewed at
http://www.newyorkacropolis.org.